Teaching Update

I haven’t blogged here much about teaching because I have a school blog that I use to show my students’ parents all the fun stuff we are doing. If you want that link, email me and I’ll give it to you if you are not a creep.

In the meantime…here are a few stories from work over the past few months.

You all know that I love a good tea party. Well, for one of my students’ birthdays, I took the girls to a tea party at the local tea room. And it was awesome. First of all, the birthday girl is Little Miss Accessories. She comes in every day with jewelry galore, she rotates between 4 different backpacks (2 Hannah Montana and 2 Disney Princess), purses, headbands, you name it. So we started off the day by giving my 3 girls manicures, and then I let the birthday girl paint the clear topcoat on my nails. One of my girls had never had her nails painted before ever! I couldn’t believe it. They walked around all day showing of their nails to everyone they met. You could tell that they just felt so special. There is something about feeling beautiful that makes a girl carry herself differently, and it was so sweet to help that happen for my little ladies.

Then we went to the tearoom. First of all, I must brag on my contact at the tearoom. When I called to inquire about bringing my class for a tea party, she was SO excited and called me 3 or 4 times as she was making preparations to make sure that it would be just right for our group. When other people get as excited about my kids as I am, it makes me really, really happy. She was just SO nice and accommodating! When we arrived, the first thing she did was compliment my girls’ nails. Then she led us to our table, and sent out the tea. As the server was pouring the tea, she came over and whispered in my ear that the tea would be complementary. Then each girl ordered a dessert, and we just acted fancy all afternoon long. One sweet girl kept talking about the pie being so delicious that she wanted to marry it. Then the hostess brought out tea bags of their specialty house tea for the girls to take home as party favors – again complementary. It was obvious that my girls felt so special and important and celebrated. That tea party will be a memory that I cherish forever. (I’m getting all verklempt just typing about it!)

(Whenever I talk about this, people always ask about the boys – don’t worry! While we were at the tea party, the boys were having a blast at the high school watching a basketball tournament with our favorite coach. I do love a good gender-role stereotype!)

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One of my students has a very difficult time understanding, processing, and verbalizing emotions. But recently we have had a couple of huge breakthroughs in this area that make me really happy! It is always exciting to see growth in kids, and these might seem like little things, but they are huge (HUGE) for him. For the past several months I will tell this kid about once a day, “Hey, did you know that I love you?” and he always says, “Why?” sounding a little disgusted and confused. And I always say, “I just can’t help it!” Well…a few weeks ago he was doing something totally characteristic of himself – rewinding and rewatching and rewinding and rewatching and rewinding and rewatching the same 15 second clip of a movie over and over and over. It was just so adorably him, so I said, “Hey, did you know that I love you?” and he said, “Yeah.” And now that’s how he always replies. It makes me really happy.

Empathy is doubly difficult for him – understanding how he feels is hard, but understanding how the things we do make other people feel? That’s just a really, really big stretch. A few weeks ago were going Christmas caroling at the nursing home, and I knew that he wouldn’t really get it. Also, he doesn’t like crowds or noise or talking to people. This trip was not exactly the recipe for a fun time for him. Even really fun field trips with big payoffs are hard for him – so I knew getting him to attend would be very tricky. And he kept talking about how he was not going to go.

But I had a trick up my sleeve… see, this kid L-O-V-E-S the presidents. He is especially interested in two things: Who did they marry? and How did they die? Millard Fillmore is particularly interesting to him because his first wife (Abigail) died, and then he was sad and lonely, and then he got married again to a widow (Caroline) who had also been sad and lonely. He talks about this guy and his two different wives a lot. So I told him that we were going to a nursing home, and explained that nursing homes are where old people live whose husbands and wives have died, like Millard Fillmore. They are really sad and lonely because they miss their Abigails, and they haven’t met their Carolines yet. So we are going to go try and make them happy by singing Christmas songs and giving them cards and saying “Merry Christmas”. I asked him if that sounded like something he could do. He thought for a second, and said, “Yeah.”

So we went to the nursing home, and he shook a jingle bell while everyone was singing (noise), and then handed a few people cards in the lunch room (crowds) and said “Merry Christmas” (talking to people) without a single fuss. I was really pleasantly surprised. But what happened next almost made me fall out – As we were leaving, he looked up at me and said, “Did we make them happy?” I was shocked! I said, “Yeah, I think we did!” and he said, “Yay. Tell Mommy that we made them happy.” My heart nearly burst. I was so proud! Sweet boy.

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I received an email from a friend that began, “Hey, Miss Redhead!”

(side note: There is a strange phenomenon about my hair. Apparently its color is hard to remember. When people are looking at me, they tell me my hair is blond or brown. But probably a dozen different times people have referred to me as a redhead in email/over the phone. People who know me well. I think it must be the curls and freckles that are deceptive. Red hair is lovely – I just don’t have it. But everytime this happens I start to question myself…maybe I do have red hair? So I always start obsessively asking people what color hair I have.)

Me: What color hair do I have?
Boy in my class: Wild!
Me: Haha, wrong answer.
Boy: No, I LOVE those little curls you have up there, they look SO cute! They make you look like a Wow Wow Wubbzy!

(side note #2: Wow Wow Wubbzy is this stupid YouTube video with these annoying little talking animals. None of them even have hair.)

(side note #3: I asked him again about the color, and he said, “Blond.” Then I asked a girl and she said, “Yellow.” Then I asked a man and he said, “Blondish-brown.” No one said red. Then I told my co-worker about the phenomenon. She called her daughter and said, “What color hair does Rachel have?” Her daughter thought for a second and said, “Red.” PHENOMENON!)

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